Heritage body has £53m ‘hole’ in budget

The coronavirus crisis created a £53 million “hole” in the budget of Scotland’s largest heritage organisation, MSPS have heard.

Historic Environment Scotland’s (HES) chief executive said Covid-19 had affected around 85% of the body’s nongovernment funding, largely due to the drop in visitors.

The Scottish Parliament’s culture committee heard evidence from several groups involved in Scotland’s heritage.

MSPS heard the pandemic had also had an impact on the number of volunteers who worked at historic sites.

Alex Paterson, chief executive of HES, said: “We estimate that 85% of our non-government funding has been adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, largely related to the implications of visitors to sites and largely related to international visitors. So that’s created a hole of £53m in our budget for the year.”

The organisation has had to reduce its costs and focus on “business-critical” activities.

Last week the Scottish Government announced £23m for HES to support reopening of its sites, money Mr Paterson said is “very helpful”.

He continued: “We are comfortable and we are fine with the arrangements we have in place for 2020-21.

“But we are clearly already giving serious thought to how do budgets and sources of income look for 2021-22 and thereafter; of course an awful lot of that is predicated on how we think the visitor economy might recover in the next 12 months.”

Philip Long, chief executive of the National Trust for Scotland, said there had been concerns the trust faced an “existential threat” earlier in the year.

However support from government and elsewhere meant he could demonstrate the trust is a “going concern”.

Stuart Mcmillan MSP asked how the organisations are responding to the Black Lives Matter movement and addressing Scotland’s role in the slave trade.

Mr Long said the trust is working on ways it can address the legacies of colonialism and historic inequalities associated with its properties.

Mr Paterson said HES is conducting research into the legacy of empire and the slave trade on Scotland’s built environment.